The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Loading ...

Loading ...

This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe

In 2006, a 26-year-old senior tech analyst at a hedge fund walked into the office of a stressed out Harry Knowles and told the then 76-year-old CEO of Metrologic Instruments that he needed to sell the bar-code scanning systems maker he founded to a private equity firm. The hedge fund that employed Jesse Cohn, Elliott Management, was Metrologic’s second biggest shareholder, but that was not the only reason that Knowles listened to the young Cohn. “He said, ‘Harry, look at your strategic situation, you don’t have any choice,’” recalls Knowles. “Jesse understood the problems and the solutions.” Cohn brought in buyout shop Francisco Partners, which together with Elliott Management purchased the company in a $440 million deal. Less than two years later, Elliott Management and Francisco Partners sold Metrologic to Honeywell for $720 million. “Jesse was the absolute key thinker and implementer who put the deal together in such an intelligent way,” says Knowles.

At the time, few people in the tech world took much notice of the young analyst who changed the course of Metrologic. It was Cohn’s first big activist move in the tech sector. Eight years later, however, Cohn is in full battle mode and making his presence widely felt in Silicon Valley, a place that has traditionally been suspicious of fast-money New York traders and resisted their influence. The tech world has long been largely shielded from people like Cohn, but now Silicon Valley is learning his name. With $23 billion under management, Elliott Management is armed with a huge war chest and Cohn, now 33, is squarely focused on shaking up Silicon Valley, which probably leaves him little time to pursue his other favorite hobby: martial arts fighting. He has already launched activist campaigns this year against two Silicon Valley companies, Riverbed Technologies and Juniper Networks.

"It's a lot like cancer, it's everywhere but you never think it's going to happen to you," says a high-level Silicon Valley banker. "A lot of people in tech don't take him seriously and some of those people now aren't running their companies anymore." Says Dipanjan “DJ” Deb, founder of Francisco Partners, the San Francisco tech buyout shop: “I am not sure all Silicon Valley companies like Jesse, but I like Jesse personally. He is a smart guy who has a useful function in capital markets.”

Cohn has emerged as an important player at Elliott Management, the activist hedge fund founded by billionaire Paul Singer. Cohn declined to comment for this article. He grew up in Long Island—Baldwin, N.Y.— and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 2002, where he dabbled as a computer programmer while studying finance. Cohn joined Elliott in 2004 after spending two years as a junior investment banker at Morgan Stanley. At Elliott Management, Cohn has climbed steadily and he now manages technology investments for the hedge fund while also heading all U.S. equity activism, according to his LinkedIn page

Cohn has had a busy year already in 2014. Last month, Elliott Management launched a $3.1 billion takeover offer of Riverbed Technology, a San Francisco computer networking company. “Riverbed’s valuation has been impaired by slowing growth in its core WAN optimization market and by significant investments in both acquisitions and operating expenses undertaken to diversify away from the core WAN optimization business,” Cohn wrote in a letter to Riverbed’s board. On the surface, it seems like Cohn is trying to put Riverbed in play for other potential acquirers. In his letter, Cohn said Elliott Management, which recently purchased 10.4% of Riverbed, would be willing to pay $19 a share and met with Riverbed CEO and co-founder Jerry Kennelly, who “had not indicated a desire to explore the significant acquisition interest of numerous potential bidders.” Riverbed’s board has formally rejected Cohn’s offer.

The day after making the Riverbed offer, Cohn struck a deal with Compuware that will see Elliott Management work with Compuware to nominate an additional two directors to the board of the Detroit-based software company. In return, Cohn and Elliott, which is the largest shareholder of Compuware, agreed not to launch another buyout of Compuware for several months like the takeover effort Cohn made last year that Compuware rejected. “The last twelve months have seen enormous progress made toward efficient operations, a streamlined portfolio and a shareholder-friendly capital return program,” Cohn said in a statement put out by Compuware. “More important, Compuware has put in place the kind of initiatives that leave it strongly positioned to keep delivering value to shareholders.”

Days after the new Compuware development, Cohn announced his next target: network equipment company Juniper Networks, Silicon Valley’s most generous employer that is known for paying its people well. Only days into his new job as Juniper Networks’ CEO, Shaygan Kheradpir was greeted with Cohn announcing that Elliott had taken a 6.2% stake in Juniper Networks and a 28-page presentation Cohn prepared calling for the company to launch a $3.5 billion share repurchase program, reduce expenses by $200 million, and focus only on projects and areas where Juniper has clear competencies. “Investors and Street analysts have been calling for Juniper to implement these value-creation initiatives for years, and we believe the three-pronged approach laid out in today’s presentation would be very well received,” said Cohn, who attacked Juniper’s outsized cost structure. Not long after Cohn unleashed his letter, another major activist hedge fund, Jana Partners, disclosed its own 6.2% stake in Juniper and repeated Cohn’s calls for cost cuts and stock buybacks.